


Subterranean Travels

by fourteenlines



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26595838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourteenlines/pseuds/fourteenlines
Summary: He hears them coming from a long way off, but there’s nothing he can do about it — nowhere he can hide, not with the tracks his horse makes in the freshly-fallen snow.  So he stops, keeps his mount but turns to face the other direction.  To face North, back to the place he’d come from, and he waits.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister & Sansa Stark, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 20
Kudos: 57





	Subterranean Travels

**Author's Note:**

> _"I don't mean just travels about the world, the earth's surface. I mean... subterranean travels, the... journeys that the spooked and bedeviled people are forced to take through the... the_ unlighted _sides of their natures."_
> 
> -Tennessee Williams, _The Night of the Iguana_
> 
>   
> CW: Mentions of sexual assault

He hears them coming from a long way off, but there’s nothing he can do about it — nowhere he can hide, not with the tracks his horse makes in the freshly-fallen snow.It’s a clear, moonlit night and they’d trace him in an instant.He’s not experienced enough at riding on winter roads to outrun them.And from the sound of it, there are more of them than he could best.Either they’re coming for him, in which case it’s no use to fight, or they’ll pass him by with barely a glance, in which case there’s no need to worry.

So he stops, keeps his mount but turns to face the other direction.To face North, back to the place he’d come from, and he waits.

Sound must carry farther in the North, because he waits longer than he expected.But then finally he sees it; a group of riders rounding the last bend at an almost reckless tilt.His heart leaps when they ride through a patch of moonlight and he can finally see clearly enough to catch a bright glint of hair. _Brienne is coming for him._

A moment later he’s able to make out the grim expression on her face and his heart sinks back down into his gut.

A part of him had suspected all along that Brienne would follow after him.He’d told himself, even more forcefully than he told her, that this is no better than he deserves.That he didn’t want her to come.But, he sees now, that part at least was a lie _._ He’s not sure if he wanted her to persuade him to go back to Winterfell and her bed, or to quietly fall into place beside him on the road South and let them figure out what to do, together.Both, perhaps.Both.

But certainly not neither.There’ll be no persuading, that’s for certain; the team of five men following her don’t seem in the mood for a nice cozy conversation, and frankly either does she.They collectively draw their swords on their final approach.Pod, close by her right shoulder, looks particularly vicious, though they’d fought the dead alongside each other not two moons earlier.

The six pull to a halt surrounding him, and for the space of two heartbeats - no, three, then four - he and Brienne simply stare at each other.The night is hushed and the only sound is the soft ambient noise of horses after a hard ride.Then, just as he opens his mouth to say something that he’s sure would have been profoundly stupid, Brienne cuts in and says flatly, “Jaime Lannister, we are charged with taking you into custody by order of Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell.”

Well, _shit._ He didn’t see that coming.

+++

Dawn is just breaking as they ride back through the gates of Winterfell.They don’t stop to confer over where to take him; Lady Sansa must have conveyed her instructions as she sent them out, because they immediately lead him to a cell that…barely qualifies, really.It’s not even indoors — that seems to be a motif for Jaime, held captive by the Starks.This one at least has a roof.It’s more like a stable than a cage.Nevertheless, they tie him down and lock him up, and it’s effective enough as a prison cell.

Some thought seems to have been put into the arrangements.A cot has been dragged into the corner, and piled high with furs.A fire burns nearby; not close enough that he could use it to any advantage but close enough to take the bite off the frigid winter cold.So they don’t intend to let him freeze to death — yet, at any rate.

There’s a flask of water but no food, but under the circumstances Jaime is not in a position to complain about the accommodations.

They leave him waiting far less time than he expects.It’s about midday when the door opens and in sweeps — Sansa Stark, alone.Brienne is not her usual shadow and he doesn’t see anyone else behind her either.She puts the key back into a pouch on her chatelaine.He’s surprised for a moment but after all, this is her home and her enemies are either dead or far away.Surely she doesn’t need a guard at all times.

But before she turns to him she glances out through the bars, not anxiously, but a thorough check nonetheless — she wants to be sure she _wasn’t_ followed.

Jaime stays silent, huddled shivering on the cot under the furs, and watches as she pulls a stool away from the wall and sits, facing not quite away from him.She can keep an eye on him but he doesn’t have a good view of her face. 

For once in his life, Jaime keeps his mouth shut.He waits.And waits again.Minutes pass before Sansa speaks, and when her voice almost imperceptibly wobbles on her first words, Jaime realizes: _she’s been composing herself,_ Her face and body had betrayed nothing.Even her voice is under control in less than a sentence.

“Did you ever meet Ramsay Bolton?” she asks, and Jaime feels as though he’s just been thrown from a horse.Nothing about this has gone as expected.

He must have been staring dumfounded at her for longer than he realized, because finally she does turn her face toward him a little, raises an eyebrow as if to say, _Well?_

“No,” Jaime says, as soon as he can recover.“I met his father at — well — I met his father.”It suddenly seems unwise to refer to Roose Bolton’s alliance with the Lannisters.

“I’m sure you heard that Littlefinger sold me to Ramsay.I was so _stupid_ , I thought I was going home.I’d known Ramsay most of my life, and while we weren’t friends, and I didn’t think he loved me, I thought it was a normal political alliance.Ramsay was the most powerful man in the North at that point and I am the rightful heir to Winterfell.”

She falls silent then, and Jaime watches her, trying to catch up.She finally turns to him, to face him fully, and says, “He raped me on my wedding night and made Theon watch.He did the same every night afterward.He threatened to feed me to his dogs more than once.”Her voice is colder than ice and her eyes are just a bit distant.

“He could have made me compliant with just a little bit of kindness, but that wasn’t what he wanted.He wanted me to fear him.He _liked_ being cruel.But he wasn’t the first person to treat me that way, and it didn’t go as he expected.He’d never met your sister, and he didn’t realize that she’d prepared me well for days when I had to make myself hard inside.I was stupid, but she’d made me less stupid.After it was all over, after Jon and I took back Winterfell and Ramsay was ours to do with as we liked, I fed Ramsay to his starving dogs, and I liked it.I’d never felt so satisfied.It happened right here, in their kennel.Am I a monster?”

It hits him like a mace to the chest, half a dozen thoughts rushing through him all at once: _Cersei was monstrous,_ and _Sansa knew it,_ and _stupid stupid stupid the stupidest Lannister,_ and _she goes away inside,_ and _this is a bit of theater isn’t it,_ and even _holy shit is she going to feed me to some dogs is it too late to ask for a dragon instead that at least would be faster._

She’s waiting, watching him. “Well, Jaime?Am I?Am I a monster for being what Ramsay and Littlefinger and your sister made me?”

It barely registers that she calls him _Jaime_ and not _Ser Jaime_ or even _Kingslayer_ , because she leans forward and says again, a bit desperately, “ _Am I?”_ and he realizes she actually expects an answer.

His throat clicks as he opens his mouth, tries to swallow, to force out the words.“No, of course not, Lady Sansa.”

She sits back, suddenly composed once more, and asks, “Why not?”

When he doesn’t answer, she presses on.“Why wasn’t I a monster when I walked away, when I didn’t even bother to watch the man I’d sentenced to death die, as my father would have done?Just to hear it and know was enough.Why wasn’t I a monster when I toyed with Littlefinger the way he’d toyed with me, let him think I’d believed his lies up to the moment that I ordered my sister to cut his throat?Why wasn’t I a monster when I learned that the Dragon Queen was going to best Cersei and I felt _glad_ that she was going to die?Why wasn’t I a monster when I taunted you over it?That a part of me is enjoying watching you squirm _right now_ when _you’ve_ never done a single thing to hurt me?”

And _all right_ , this is getting to be a bit much.A part of him wants to be flippant, to tell her he’s reevaluating his answer, and part of _that_ isn’t flippant at all.But it hits him suddenly, the answer to her question, the answer to _why not_ that she’d been leading him to all along:“Because you are what they made you and you had no say in that.”

A sigh escapes her and a tiny smile forms on her mouth.That _was_ evidently the right answer.“Because I had no say in it.Because I did what I had to do to survive.”

She turns away from him again then, and lets her words breathe in the space between them.He doesn’t know what to say, or even if he’s supposed to speak.He thinks not, but twice now she’s expected an answer when he didn’t give one.She sits, and she is silent, and she doesn’t leave.

They sit like that for some time, Jaime with thoughts racing through him that he’s trying to ignore, and Sansa doing gods know what.After the silence has stretched to its breaking point, Sansa opens her mouth again, and part of him dreads what will come out. 

“Brienne saved me,” she says, and it’s worse than he thought.

“I don’t want to talk about Brienne,” he says.

She looks back at him and _laughs_.Not a cruel laugh like Cersei would have done, but in disbelief.“ _That’s_ where you draw the line?”

“ _I don’t want to talk about Brienne,_ ” he growls.

“I’m sure you don’t, because you’ve been an absolute shit to her, but you’re not in much position to decide, are you? _Brienne saved me_ , and I mean that literally.”

She continues, “Stannis’ army attacked Winterfell, and in the confusion Theon and I jumped from the walls into the deep snow and ran, but we both knew we were running to our deaths.There was nowhere to run except into the forest and freeze.We’d never have made it to Castle Black on foot.And then Ramsay noticed we were gone and sent the dogs after us.They were on us by the time Brienne found us.She killed the dogs and she killed the men that were with them.Twice before I’d refused her help because she told me she’d been sent by _you,_ but I couldn’t deny her a third time, and there in the Wolfswood she became my sworn sword and I became her liege lady.She and Podrick had horses, and provisions, and she took me to Castle Black and to Jon, the first member of my family I had seen in five years.So yes, I mean she saved my life.But she also saved my spirit.She was someone I could trust when for so long I hadn’t been able to trust anyone.Brienne saved _me_.”

Jaime’s heart is in his throat listening to her story, because this is _Brienne_ she’s talking about - _his Brienne_ , the woman he sent on an impossible quest who managed to fulfill it against all odds.He’s filled with pride for Brienne but it’s mingled with dread, because Sansa’s story is too pointed and he doesn’t think she’s at the end of it.

And he’s right, because she pauses just long enough to let the tension grow.Then she says, “And I think she saved you, too,” and something in Jaime _breaks_.

He buries his head in the furs and shivers, and it’s like the cold hits him all at once.He can’t stop shaking.Brienne…Brienne didn’t _save_ him, the thought makes him sick, not because she was incapable, but because he wasn’t…

He wasn’t worth — he wasn’t…

_You’re a good man_ , she’d said, choking over it for gods’ sake, and when had anyone else ever believed so much about him?He’s spent his entire life not thinking about the things he’s done, the ones that put the lie to whatever noble ideas Brienne had about him.They were easier to ignore and push aside than to confront the deep well of disgust seething inside him.He’s done some good things, he supposes.It doesn’t make him a good man.

He can sense Sansa Stark hovering at his side.She waits until his shuddering stops before she strikes at him again.“Are you a monster, Jaime?Are you a monster for becoming what Aerys Targaryen and Cersei and Tywin Lannister made you?”

His head snaps up and he barks, “What do you know of my father?” and then he feels stupid because _of course_ she knows his father, she was imprisoned by him in Kings Landing for _years_.

She throws him that amused glance again, almost as if she can read his mind.“Are you?” she repeats softly, and Jaime clenches his jaw and looks away. _You don’t understand_ , he wants to say, but he’s afraid she does.

Sansa must have some pity left, however, because after a moment she sighs and says, “Do you know, your brother is the only person in your family who was kind to me?And he was very kind, when he had the chance to be very cruel.”

_They were married_ , he suddenly remembers, because it had been such an absurd ploy that it had slipped from his mind entirely.

“The…the children?” he asks, ready to pursue another topic.He tries not to be grateful.

She frowns, a tiny line forming between her eyebrows.“Myrcella and Tommen…they weren’t cruel to me, but they weren’t kind either.They didn’t dare try.It wasn’t safe for them.”And it breaks his heart to think about that, about his poor dead kind children, forced to indifference for their own safety.Because the two youngest, he knew without a doubt, could have been very kind indeed.

“Joffrey, on the other hand,” Sansa says, mirroring his own thoughts.Her eyes go distant once again, and he wonders where she goes when she goes away inside.He doesn’t want to understand.He doesn’t want to know so much about _Sansa fucking Stark_ that she obviously wouldn’t want him to know.He wonders if anyone ever called her _the stupidest Stark,_ because she’s called herself stupid more than once and it’s uncomfortably close to the constant murmur running through the back of his own mind, _stupid stupid stupid_.But her expression clears after only a few moments, and she looks him dead in the eye again as she says, “Joffrey really _was_ a monster, worse than his mother, and although what I saw of it was gruesome, I was glad when he died. I suppose I was remembering that when I imagined your sister’s death.”

His vision goes white because this is too much, _too much,_ and he can’t let it go unchallenged.But he has no words to dispute with because nothing she’s said is _wrong._ Just more truths he’s always felt better off not knowing.

This time she doesn’t expect a response from him, however.She stands, pulls another key from her chatelaine and busies herself unlocking his chains.How a high-born lady knows so much about chaining someone up — well, a high-born lady other than Brienne — he does not want to know.She then unlocks the cell and turns back to him at the door.

“I shouldn’t have baited you about Cersei.It was badly done.”

It’s not an _apology_ exactly, but it has the shape of one, so he nods in acceptance.

She regards him silently for another moment, and then continues, “You’re free to move about the castle, but I want to be perfectly clear — you do not have my leave to depart Winterfell, and if I have to send men after you a second time, your accommodations won’t be quite so comfortable when you return.Is that understood?”

He nods again, and Sansa looks to the left and to the right, looks to make sure she won’t be seen leaving his company.She has one foot out the door when she turns one last time and says, almost casually, “Oh, and Jaime?”

This time, her familiarity rankles.“Yes, _Sansa_?” he responds, voice dripping sarcasm.

“If you hurt her like that again, I’ll take your other hand,” she says, quite cooly, and then she sweeps away in a rustle of black wool and silk.Jaime is left to gape after her, torn between the icy fear dripping down his spine and revulsion at the thought that he’s hurt Brienne at all.

+++

Later, after his jangled nerves have settled, he goes looking for his sword.First he checks the stables, but as he suspected, his packs have been removed from his horse.He makes his way to the room he’d used when he first arrived in Winterfell, but finds it empty and cold, a layer of dust settled over everything.Finally, frowning, he goes to their — to _Brienne’s_ chambers — and tentatively knocks.When there is no answer, he opens the door.

His sword is laid out on the table, freshly cleaned of slush from the road.His bags are nowhere to be found, but as he looks about the room, he realizes that they’ve simply been unpacked, all of his things put back in their places.His extra shirt is folded, neatly, the way Brienne does when she helps him with his washing.He swallows hard, buckles on his sword, and goes in search of her.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for some time now. I thought for awhile that it was stupid that Brienne just didn't go after Jaime and physically drag his ass back to Winterfell. She was certainly more than capable of it and she knew damn well that he was throwing his life away. But then I realized that compelling your romantic partner to go somewhere against their will is called _kidnapping_ , and...well...don't physically force your partners to do things, kids.
> 
> The Lady of Winterfell, however, has no such problems.
> 
> I've been fascinated for a long time with the parallels between Jaime and Sansa, and was disappointed that, far from being explored by the show, it seemed that the people in charge weren't even _aware_ of them. This was originally supposed to be all Jaime & Brienne, but Sansa had something to say about it.
> 
> Next up: Sansa's POV, the night before.


End file.
